Cuba can play, but will it show up? 1/21/2006 Miami Herald: "The approval Friday of Cuba's invitation to play in March's World Baseball Classic assures the participation of the 15 other invited nations and might give the inaugural tournament prestige it would have lacked without the three-time Olympic champion.
What it doesn't do, however, is assure Cuba's participation. Some international baseball experts -- many of whom doubted Cuban's participation from the start -- believe there are a number of things that could keep the island nation out of the event, including the high probability of defections, the good chance that Cuba would not make it past the tournament's second round and the timing of the World Classic, which falls in the middle of Cuba's domestic baseball championships."

The Cuban connection is still in Miami and Dallas 1/20/2006 Granma: "Ruby also had links with David Yaras, the mafia executor who admitted to having met him in 1964, and with David Ferrie, of Cuban origin, Marcello’s pilot who, in his turn used to see Lee Harvey Oswald in New Orleans. According to the Committee findings, Ferrie, who was a CIA agent, was also in contact with Oswald through the Aerial Civil Patrol Falcon Squadron and a famous New Orleans office on 544 Camp Street, where members of groups acting against the Cuban Revolution, like Guy Bannister, also operated. Oswald had his office for the deceptively titled Fair Play with Cuba organization in the same building at the same time."

Organised crime gangs pose threat to Cuban development 1/20/2006 Jane's, UK: "Currently, the Cubans are prepared to co-operate on a limited and pragmatic basis with the US, as well as with authorities in Jamaica and their other neighbours. Were the regime in Havana to become even less supportive of counternarcotics operations, whether because of rising corruption or state policy, this would pose a serious challenge to regional interdiction efforts. It would also open up new opportunities for organised crime, for which Cuba could become a new fall-back location for drug warehousing and processing facilities, or simply as a safe haven.
Less overtly, a rapid and under-controlled shift to market economics could, as happened in the post-Soviet states, open up the country for a criminalisation of its financial system. It could again become an offshore playground and magnet for organised crime money, not least as a money-laundering centre. Already Russian gangs, drawing on historical connections with the island and connections with the Cuban elite, have used its financial system to launder funds."

Not a threat to the US 1/16/2006 Znet: "American college professors arrested and accused of operating as covert agents for the government of Fidel Castro opened another chapter in the conflict between Washington and Havana. For a change, the epicenter is Miami.
The district attorneys in the case and local media have generated the idea that the pair were "spying" for the Cuban government, although the formal charges make no reference to the term. In a telephone interview with La Jornada, from his offices in Miami, Steven Chaykin, defense attorney, has declared this to be "reproachable, since no one has accused them of this." "

Arrest of pair puzzles school - Fla. professor, wife accused of spying 1/15/2006 Baltimore Sun: "According to an indictment unsealed Monday, the Alvarezes sent information about the Cuban-American community and officials of the U.S. government and FBI to Cuba's spy agency, using shortwave radios, coded messages and computer-encrypted files. U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta said the couple had acknowledged those activities."

Castro Did It - Again 1/10/2006 JFK Accountability: by Peter Dale Scott, Rex Bradford - "Although there is legitimate concern that the latest revival of this theory at this time may be a prelude to a revival of anti-Castro operations, it is also possible that it is a diversion. A diversion from the increasing revelations about the games that the CIA was playing with Oswald files just before the assassination. And a diversion from the growing consensus that previously-suppressed facts about Kennedy's policies on Cuba and the Cold War, which placed him at odds with powerful hard-liners in his own country, may indeed lie at the heart of the mystery about his murder."

Posada Carriles May Soon Hit the Streets 1/6/2006 NarcoNews: "It’s now clear why the United States refused to charge Posada Carriles with terrorism. Not until now do we see exactly why the government charged him only with the single and timid charge of entering the country without proper papers. Instead of pursuing justice, the United States government simply scolded the terrorist.
According to an article published this Wednesday in the Miami Herald’s Spanish language newspaper, the Office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement recently informed Posada’s lawyers that his “status as a detainee would be reviewed on the 24th of January.” This means that within a few weeks Posada Carriles, the man responsible for the blowing up of a passenger plane with 73 people on board in 1976, could soon be freed by the U.S. government under regulations that prohibit the indefinite detention of undocumented aliens whose deportation from the country cannot be carried out within a ninety-day period."

New U.S. envoy lays out his vision for a democratic Cuba 12/13/2005 Sun Sentinel: "The whole idea that somehow Caleb McCarry is going to come in and supervise the transition in Cuba is absurd," said Wayne Smith, former head of the U.S. mission in Cuba under the Carter administration. "Cubans would never accept that, not even Cubans who oppose the government." The Cuban government is nowhere near collapse, Smith said, although the economy is weak. "None of the measures put forward by the United States -- increasing broadcasting and cutting back on travel and so forth -- none of that is going to bring down the government and force them to do anything." Smith said."

I’m a strange poet… Nancy Morejón, National Literature Prize Winner 12/7/2005 Cuba Now: " didn’t take it seriously that they were going to dedicate this Fair to me, I worked very hard. Three new titles are going to come out, and there will be new editions and reprints. A book of poetry, naturally, unpublished, Carbones silvestres with a very beautiful cover by Choco. There is the anthology Cuerda veloz , which came out in 2003 in the National Literature Prize Collection. Another anthology by the young poetess Teresa Melo; a collection of my journalistic work by Oriente publishers, Pluma al Viento (Pen to the Wind); I’m very excited about that book, because it includes my work from 1975-2005 on musicians, writers, visual artists. I will have a selection of essays, published and unpublished, and a beautiful edition by Vigía, in Matanzas , of the only dramatic poem I’ve ever written, Pierrot y la luna (Pierrot and the Moon), with some of my drawings. There should be a reprint Entre leopardos (Between Leopards), with a piece by Carilda Oliver Labra which is included as a prologue to this small book of love poetry. There will also be a reprint of Nación y mestizaje en Nicolás Guillén, which will be launched in a colloquium sponsored by the Guillén Foundation on the contributions of Auguier and one who is dedicated to the studies of Guillén."

Indictment ties Posada ally to Broward arms stash 12/3/2005 Miami Herald: "A task force of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms and FBI agents recovered nine firearms from the cooler transported from Alvarez's 280-unit Lauderhill apartment complex and from a gun safe in the storage facility. Among the seized firepower: one Maddi Company AK-47 machine gun; one M-14 machine gun; one RPB Industries M-11A-1 machine gun; two Colt AR-15 semiautomatic rifles; two Essential Arms Co. J-15 machines guns; one Heckler and Koch grenade launcher; and one silencer. ''In an attempt to evade detection by law enforcement, [Alvarez] would remove machine guns with obliterated serial numbers, a silencer without a serial number, and a [grenade launcher] from the storage facility . . . in order to transfer [the] items to Osvaldo Mitat,'' according to the indictment. During last month's bond hearing, Kainen told the federal magistrate: ``I would suggest, your honor, there is no evidence that these [weapons] were going to be used in the United States."

Angola, A Great Cuban Deed 12/3/2005 Prensa Latina: "Cuba sent thousands of voluntary combatants to attend the birth of an African republic, from whence thousands of slaves had come centuries before to contribute in forming the Cuban nation, he emphasized. He called to mind that, during the last days of that valiant endeavor, the threat of use of atomic weapons by the white invading army made it necessary to fill the lock of a dam with dynamite near the offensive army´s barracks. In case of an atomic attack the answer would have been a devastating crash of 3.8 billion cubic feet of water, he said. The origin of the atomic weapons was not known, although the then-South African regime had such weaponry unaccounted for later."

Miamigate? 12/1/2005 Progresso Weekly: "If you pull Álvarez's string, you can follow it all the way to the White House. We might then assume that this is not a "strategy" of the government but of its opponents, as happened in the other "gates." Evidently, the Bush administration is facing an opposition that's sitting on the heart of the system, and the reason for this is the failure of the war in Iraq. ...There is nothing more compromising for the credibility of the "war on terrorism" than the connection between the administration and the Miami terrorists, and that's something the administration's foes know well. Until recently, the government had managed to sweep the Posada affair under a rug, but its inefficiency and disrespect for public opinion have been so blatant that it seems the federal prosecutors were left to their own devices, to sink or swim. Only that can explain the lack of criticism that met Posada's illegal entry to the United States, his "clandestine" presence in Miami, the manipulation of a hearing where the prosecutor accepted the defense's arguments without a peep, and where the judge was a government employee. These things can happen with a strong government that enjoys the complicity of powerful groups but not with a lame-duck president like George W. Bush, so I smell a trap in the impunity. I have no idea who ordered the detention of Santiago Álvarez, but I tend to think it was not the government. Maybe they found out too late, or couldn't prevent the arrest without digging themselves into a deeper hole. They might even be able to control the damage. But if they cannot, Bush's "gate" will be memorable. Cuban Americans in Miami are his best stronghold; the day he does not rule them in Miami is the day he does not rule anywhere else."

The police who arrested the Five participated in the conspiracy to assassinate Venezuelan Attorney General Anderson 11/28/2005 Granma: "IN its November 10 late edition, the Miami daily El Nuevo Herald revealed that according to "a Venezuelan government witness in the investigation into the murder of Attorney General Danilo Anderson," Héctor Pesquera, former FBI chief in Miami, who directed, organized and effected the arrest of the five Cubans transformed into spies in a grand media show, was also involved in the assassination of the Venezuelan official. ...Pesquera is the same "SAC" (Special Agent in Charge) of the Miami FBI who, for months, supposedly did not suspect the presence, just a few kilometers from his office, of 14 of the 19 Al Qaeda terrorists involved in the September 11 attack. Meanwhile he was pursuing, arresting and setting up the political trial and conviction of five Cuban antiterrorist agents who had infiltrated Miami extremist groups. Puerto Rican and assimilated into the U.S. power structure, this former counterintelligence officer was FBI chief in Puerto Rico, where he arranged the release of Miami terrorists involved in the case of La Esperanza yacht captured by the Coast Guard en route to the Isle of Margarita, Venezuela, in an attempt on the life of the Cuban president. Personally linked to Miami terrorist bosses such as José Basulto and Horacio García, Pesquera knows every detail of the conspiracies against Cuba and Venezuela that have been developed in the Floridian city while he headed the federal police there."

MAFIA HAS EYES ON CUBA, REPORT SAYS 11/26/2005 Nuevo herald: published 5/99 - "GQ names St. Martin, in the Dutch Antilles, as a key organized-crime staging area for Cuba, and Rosario Spadaro, an Italian businessman with two hotels and two casinos there, as a financier with Mafia ties who is likely to be a key figure in future organized-crime ventures in Cuba." [Spadaro is partners with Kidan, himselff a partner of Abramoff in SunCruz.]

Agents target Posada ally 11/19/2005 Miami Herald: "Federal authorities searched the Hialeah office of Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles' biggest benefactor Friday, the same day that a Cuban group ran a full-page advertisement in The New York Times denouncing Posada."

Why health matters for CIA 11/18/2005 BBC: "Reports this week that the CIA has concluded that Cuba's President Fidel Castro has the debilitating Parkinson's disease shed light on the agency's practice of medical and psychological profiling."

Gold-plated sweet potatoes and confiscated trucks 11/17/2005 Radio Progresso: "Juan Contino, Havana’s mayor, told the Tribuna de La Habana daily that some 36 trucks loaded with products for middlemen had been seized. But according to sellers at free markets, the number of trucks is higher. “Sure, middle men raise the price some, but what the government wants is to drive us out of business,” said a seller at the market at 19 and B Streets in El Vedado, reputedly the most expensive and best stocked, although always full of buyers. Farmers’ Free Markets were created as a measure to ease the crisis due to the disappearance of the Socialist block in the 90s. “They think they will solve the problem stopping the trucks and detaining people, but they are wrong.” And he threateningly adds, “Just wait to when everything is rationed or in the government’s markets. You’ll see.”"

Prize-Winning Cuban Scientist Denied Visa 11/12/2005 AP: "A Cuban scientist who helped develop a low-cost synthetic vaccine that prevents meningitis and pneumonia in small children says he was offended the U.S. government denied his request to travel to the United States to receive an award. Vicente Verez-Bencomo was to accept the award recognizing his team's technological achievement during a Wednesday ceremony at the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, Calif. He had also been invited to address a gathering of the Society for Glycobiology in Boston on Friday. Verez-Bencomo said the State Department denied him a visa because the visit would be ``detrimental to the interests of the United States.'' "

Celerino Castillo on Luis Posada Carriles 11/11/2005 From the Wilderness: published 5/17/05, by Celerino "Cele" Castillo, 3rd, the ex-DEA Agent who exposed Felix Rodriguez, the man who killed Che, as a major narcoterrorist.

We support Cuba because Cuba supports Blacks and Africa - Response to Chabot Cuba Conference report 11/9/2005 SF Bay View: 'The problem is, when you speak of Cuban realities - or realities in Mexico, Venezuela, Peru, Brazil etc. - who is Afro-Cuban and who is not? When I first went to Cuba in 1974, years after the first waves of gusano defections to Miami, I was informed by reliable medical authorities that so many whites had left that by then fully 80 percent of the Cuban population was susceptible to sickle cell anemia. In other words, Cuba was becoming darker by white political default. Furthermore, throughout Cuban history - and throughout the histories of all the previously mentioned former Spanish and Portuguese colonies - peoples of African descent of many gradations of color have populated most of the economic and political categories - with the general exception of the very top, of course - so that a veneer of color has enshrouded all Cuban society."

Son of Miami Chief Timoney arrested on drug charges in New York 11/3/2005 Florida Ledger: "The 25-year-old son of Miami police Chief John Timoney was arrested for trying to buy 400 pounds of marijuana from an undercover federal agent, the Drug Enforcement Administration said Wednesday. A court complaint said Sean Timoney of Philadelphia gave the agent a gym bag filled with approximately $450,000 in cash."

US steps up planning for a Cuba without Castro 11/1/2005 Financial Times: "The US Institute of Peace, funded by Congress to work on conflict management, declined to lend its expertise to the Cuba project. "This was an exercise in destabilisation, not stabilisation," said one person involved."

More Cubans leaving for U.S. 11/1/2005 Miami Herald: "The number of Cubans leaving their homeland by sea in illegal attempts to reach the United States has increased sharply. According to the most recent figures from the Coast Guard and the Border Patrol, the number of Cuban migrants stopped at sea so far this year is nearly double the number intercepted last year. The number of Cubans who made it to shore in the last 12 months is almost triple the number who reached U.S. soil during the prior 12-month period."